“The last time we took part in this project we had an Ofsted Inspection on one of the days that our engineer was in my class and we were in the middle of constructing our vehicles. The children were animated and able to talk with in-depth knowledge about what they had been learning and the skills they had learnt. The Inspector was so impressed it was mentioned directly in our report. We also took part in the Primary Engineering Competition and five of our pupils received a commendation, and one of our Year 5 pupils was the Eastern Regional Winner with an invention of a walking conveyor belt at pedestrian crossings to support those people with disabilities and the elderly. This child was a child who lacked self-confidence, was vulnerable child and since going to secondary school has excelled in STEM subjects – a huge achievement!” – Kirstyn Brennan, Deputy Head Teacher in the East of England.

This is just ONE of the incredible pieces of feedback that Primary Engineer’s AWARD-WINNING CPD courses have received over recent weeks. Through 2020 and the beginning of 2021, we have introduced engineering to 451 teachers so far (yes! Four hundred and fifty-one!). Adapting to the changing circumstances of 2020 has proven challenging, but the reviews from teachers and engineers alike goes to show how successful and classroom-changing our Early Years, Primary and Secondary school courses are. Although seats are being booked quickly, there are still some remaining!

Early Years Engineer

Boston Borough Council – 21/04/2021 and 29/04/2021 – Local Area
Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council – 29/04/2021 and 30/04/2021 – Local Area
Kirklees – 19/04/2021 to 23/04/2021 – Local Area

Primary Engineer

Cavendish Nuclear -12/04/2021 – Warrington
Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council – 12/04/2021 and 16/04/2021  – Local Area
Kirklees – 13/04/2021 to 16/04/2021  – Local Area
FORD – 13/04/2021 – Essex

Secondary Engineer

Cadent Gas – 26/04/2021 – Cambridgeshire
Canterbury Christ Church – 26/04/2021 – Kent
Gatwick Airport – 26/04/2021  – Radius Around Gatwick
Webtec – 26/04/2021  – Cambridgeshire
Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council – 27/04/2021 – Local Area
Amey Arup – 28/04/2021 – Aberdeenshire
Boston Borough Council – 30/04/2021 – Local Area

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The programme is designed to promote engineering skills and careers to pupils, their parents and teachers and will be delivered in 10 Falkirk schools.

On Thursday 13^th September, Primary and Secondary school teachers teamed up with engineers from INEOS O&P UK at Grangemouth to take part in Primary Engineer training day ahead of delivering in the classrooms.

Dr Susan Scurlock, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer®, expressed her delight in the partnership. “We are thrilled that INEOS will be investing in our programmes and that their engineers will be supporting the teachers’ delivery of the project.  Falkirk is surrounded by engineering – whether it’s INEOS’ plant at Grangemouth, the Falkirk Wheel or the Kelpies. Our work together will ensure young people in the area understand the skills and routes into the many fields of engineering to benefit the Forth Valley region for years to come.”

INEOS O&P UK owns and operates petrochemical plants in Grangemouth, producing key products used in a wide range of everyday items that enhance and improve our ways of life. Employing more than 900 highly skilled people it is vital for the long-term future of the industry and for manufacturing that there is a pool of talent, interested in science, technology and engineering. Each year the business recruits Graduates and Modern Apprentices into its engineering training programmes.

John McNally, CEO O&P UK said, “Engineering is at the heart of our industry. It is therefore important that we work in partnership with teachers to enthuse young people to take up Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects at school. The Primary Engineer® Programme is a great way to utilise the expertise and harness the enthusiasm of our employees to inspire the next generation of engineers, technologists and scientists.”

Forth Valley College hosted the teacher training event and the pupil celebration will take place in April, providing opportunities for teachers and pupils to understand more about studying engineering. The project is also supported by DYW Forth Valley and Falkirk Council.

Kenny MacInnes, Head of Engineering at Forth Valley College, explains why the College has chosen to get involved:

“This is an excellent opportunity to support engagement between teachers and industry and help them to enhance STEM learning for children and young people. This type of engagement sits at the heart of the Scottish Government’s STEM strategy and Forth Valley College is delighted to be able to host this event.”

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The event got very competitive amongst the teachers that attended and with our new approach to the fluid power course, we saw some innovative designs being built by the teachers that we had never seen produced before, including ‘The Goliath’.  Teachers at the event developed very sophisticated designs and ramped up the level which they will be taking back to their S1 and S2 students.

One Engineer said, “The tasks were engaging and exciting, and it was excellent to discuss with a Math’s Teacher, how important concepts in mathematics are in building machines and structures and how to make students visually appreciate this.”

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Local primary and secondary schools attend event at Moray College UHI
Around 100 pupils and 20 teachers from 16 Moray primary schools and 4 secondary schools attended an event on Tuesday 17 April in Moray College UHI to celebrate the success of Transport Scotland’s schools engagement programme on the A96 Dualling Hardmuir to Fochabers scheme.

The event let local school children present their projects to a judging panel from Transport Scotland’s design consultancy Mott MacDonald Sweco (MMS). Prizes were awarded to the winning teams in different categories.

In the first year of the programme, training has been delivered by specialist educational supplier Primary Engineer to 56 primary and 20 secondary school teachers. Engineers from MMS have assisted with presentations, Q&A sessions and class projects.

Keith Brown Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work said:

“As well as upgrading the A96 between Inverness and Aberdeen to dual carriageway, this Government recognises the importance of benefitting the communities who live along the route as we design and build the new road.
 
“It is fitting in the Year of Young People that our schools engagement is leaving a legacy for the future, training teachers to deliver a programme for pupils in local schools which helps them develop an interest in engineering.

“The fact that engineers from Transport Scotland and the consultants designing the dualled route between Hardmuir and Fochabers are taking the time to offer their expertise will help inspire the children to consider being the engineers of the future.”

Lise McCaffery, Regional Director for Primary Engineer, expressed her delight with the project outcomes.

“It’s wonderful to see how young people and their teachers in Moray have engaged with our engineering programmes, linking with industry professionals and using their creative problem solving. We look forward to seeing how the project grows.”

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The CEA (Construction Equipment Association) has for a second year teamed up with educational organisation Primary Engineer to work with primary and secondary schools in the Leicestershire area.  The catchment area has been widened this year to include schools in Coventry – the schools will work on exciting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) vehicle and fluid power engineering projects.

The first event CEA and Primary Engineer collaborated on was held at last year’s Plantworx exhibition and it was a resounding success! Local schools worked on their projects throughout the year following training sessions with the Primary Engineer teams.  The school children, along with their teachers, then brought their projects along to Plantworx for the ‘Celebration Event’ where their vehicles and fluid power models were scrutinized by judges.

Judges included engineers from Caterpillar, JCB and Perkins, who volunteered for the role, and from other sponsor companies including AMI, Bomag, BSP Foundations, GKD, Gomaco, Datatag, Marubeni Komatsu, Nylacast, Point of Rental and TriMark.

The CEA and Plantworx team had very positive feedback from the schools involved and many said that if this event was run each year – it would automatically be added to the school curriculum. This initiative forms part of the CEA Skills Council programme – all part of the drive to engage young people in STEM projects as a means of inspiring careers in the sector.

JCB’s Apprentice Programme Advisor, Chris Morris, attended the 2017 celebration event at Plantworx he said, “The JCB Engineering Talent Programme would like to thank Plantworx, the CEA and Primary Engineer for inviting us along to the Primary and Secondary Engineering Award. 

The day was thoroughly enjoyable, and it was great to see the young budding engineers in action. We brought along the Apprentice Built Loadall which was manufactured and built entirely by 68 JCB engineering apprentices at our World Headquarters in Staffordshire. This made such an impact with the students and the advice given by our apprentices will hopefully help inspire them into a career in engineering. Some of the thought and hard work that went into the projects was fantastic and it was great to see the smiles on each of the student’s face during the trials.” 

Mr Morris concluded, “As we know, the UK is heavily short of engineers and Primary Engineer is doing a fantastic job in helping to promote engineering through school engagement, by setting tasks and importantly, making it enjoyable. It was an excellent achievement by all. Keep up the good work!”

About Primary Engineer and The Universe of Engineering.

Primary Engineer has been working with teachers to address the fundamental issue of a lack of engineers and the wider perception of engineering since 2005. It is a not-for-profit organisation instigated through seed-corn funding from the then Department of Trade and Industry. It has grown over the last decade to deliver teacher training to over 1000 teachers annually, bringing the programme, in the classroom, to over 33 000 new pupils, establishing itself as part of the curriculum in thousands of schools across the UK.

The research demonstrates that primary teachers find STEM subjects more difficult to teach, this lack of skills increases the disengagement of pupils with these subjects from a very early age.  Primary Engineer has addressed this issue by providing teachers with practical skills and academic knowledge to subtly apply and embed the theoretical into the practical, effectively ‘STEM by Stealth’. The impact on the teaching professionals and their pupils which has been reported anecdotally in numerous schools, Ofsted reports and evaluations from Engineering UK’s Tomorrows’ Engineers programme which funded some of Primary Engineers engagement with schools have also demonstrated significant impact on learning outcomes and experiences.

Over the last decade Primary Engineer has responded to the demand led by teachers and local companies expanding the programme from the first Primary Engineer training days delivered to primary teachers to a comprehensive suite of training and whole class activities.

There are sponsorship opportunities available for this years’ CEA and Primary Engineer project and the CEA would be delighted if CEA Members and associated companies would like to be involved.  Sponsorship is just £750.00 to support teacher training and materials.

All sponsor companies will be invited to be part of the judging panel at the ‘Celebration Event’, which will be held at the end of the 2018 academic year the WMG (Warwickshire Manufacturing Group) at the University of Warwick in Coventry.

http://www.toolbusiness.co.uk/Company-news/Press-release-January-2018-CEA-will-partner-again-with-Primary-and-Secondary-Engineer?utm_content=buffer6e6ca&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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With wonderful support from Julie Adams and the team of engineers from Jacobs, the training day at the University of Highlands and Islands was a great success! One teacher remarked “really enjoyed the course, one of the best I have been on. It taught me skills I have never used and revisited one I haven’t used in a long time! Amazing to be given the resources to now go ahead and deliver this in school”. All teachers have now been linked with an engineer and plans are underway to schedule initial visits.

Fluid Power training day:

Each teacher was linked with a Jacobs Engineer and they’re planning on starting their project in their high school in early 2018 ready for the Fluid Power Challenge in Spring. A really hands-on practical day full of questions from participating teachers and engineers. We’ll be back to the UHI in Spring 2018 for the Inverness Celebration Event!

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The Primary Engineer team were happy to return to the Highlands and travelled way up North to a small town called Elgin.  We delivered two hugely successful days of training to 33 enthusiastic Moray teachers with the handy help of our contract partners the SWECO Engineers!

One teacher said that the course was “Fun, challenging and confidence boosting!”. We will be returning to the Highlands in March to run the Moray schools celebration event, which will be really thrilling for the pupils this year as we will be running the event as part of Moray Colleges Science Festival!!!

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Our first Leaders Award event kicked of in the North East of England for its second year. We were provided an amazing venue at the Discovery Museum for the awards event but also held an exhibition for 2 days – 200 North East pupils’ inventions were on display to answer the question ‘If you were an Engineer, what would you do?’.

Without a doubt the awards evening was exquisite with a massive 140 guests on the night! We had Mark Armstrong Head of Services Facility at Siemens and Andrew Esson Managing Director at Quick Hydraulics as our guest speakers along with Simon Gilroy from the Reece Foundation to present the awards for the evening.

The overall winner of the evening was Samuel Baird a Year 1 pupil from Coquet Park First School in Whitley Bay, who invented the “World Travelling Classroom,” which would give teachers and pupils access to 4 or more classes around the globe by way of a video link.

We would like to thank the Reece Foundation, the Discovery Museum and Siemens.

To find all the winners for North East please click here

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The evening was attended by the winning pupils and their very proud families. The children’s work was celebrated with an explanation of the invention and the presentation of a coveted glass trophy. The response to the question ‘If you were an engineer what would you do?’ prompted such wonderful inventions as a device to stop old people from getting numb legs when using the toilet! a GPS system for bicycles and a device to open the curtains automatically to wake the sleeper and others. The overall winner from Shuttleworth College, was a software engineering invention in the form of an app, which only allows pupils to play games after answering regular homework questions correctly. The event was topped off with an illuminating talk from Mark Crabtree OBE of AMS Neve who spoke about what it was like to be an engineer and the creative process. The future of engineering is in safe hands if these inventions are anything to go by!!

To find all the winners for Burnley Primary Engineer and Secondary Engineer Leaders Award please click here

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